Dec. 24, 2008

December 23, 2008

HOLLYWOOD – God bless America, and how’s everybody?

• Oklahoma Sooners coach Bob Stoops hinted Monday that OU may play in the Dallas Cowboys’ new stadium this fall. They’d play Brigham Young. If there’s one thing you can count on with these two schools it’s that there won’t be a gay wedding at halftime.

• The Dallas Cowboys lost Saturday in their final football game at Texas Stadium after 40 years. They move to their new stadium next fall. Texas Stadium will be imploded just as soon as it gets approval from regulators to become a commercial bank.

• President Ronald Reagan’s favorite White House egg nog recipe turned up on the Internet this week. It’s one part egg nog and three parts bourbon. The Gipper always believed in peace through strength.

• Barack Obama was seen on news clips swinging a golf club in Hawaii Monday. He’s kept a Republican Defense Secretary, he’s named a conservative economic team, he’s asked an evangelical to give his Inaugural invocation, and now he’s playing golf. The Dwight D. Eisenhower Library just announced that Ike was our first black president.

• Congressman Barney Frank slammed Barack Obama for inviting a pastor opposed to gay marriage to pray at the Inaugural. The president-elect met him halfway. He’s agreed to take the oath of office with his left hand on a copy of The Paul Lynde Story.

• Pastor Rick Warren was chosen to give the Inaugural prayer in January. He has a huge evangelical church in Orange County. You can’t scare people in Southern California with descriptions of hellfire, it sounds like just another October to them.

• Governor Rod Blagojevich told Chicago reporters Friday he is innocent of corruption charges against him. The man dresses beautifully. All Illinois governors wear pinstripe suits so they never have to bring a change of clothing into prison.

• Wall Street crook Bernie Madoff was placed under house arrest Friday after confessing to swindling people out of $50 billion. He took money from new investors to pay off old investors, hoping nobody would notice. It’s an old scam called Social Security.

• The White House loaned GM and Chrysler seventeen billion in bailout cash to keep them afloat. One thing you must say for Detroit. U.S. auto executives didn’t waste their time with a third-rate nation like Iraq, they lost to Japan and Germany like men.

• Dick Cheney ripped Joe Biden Sunday for criticizing his expansion of executive power. He said there are no limits on power in wartime. The Founding Fathers should have foreseen that the World Trade Center might not have a back-up sprinkler system.

• Saudi Arabia’s rulers lifted a 30-year-old ban on movies Monday. They said movies must show good and not violate Islamic law. The first movie they allowed to be shown was Exodus, but they had to run it backwards so it would have a happy ending.

• Valkyrie opens Thursday starring Tom Cruise about the German war hero who tried to kill Hitler with a bomb. He won the role after another actor bowed out. Part of Mel Gibson’s plea agreement with the Malibu judge is that he never plays a Nazi again.

• NBC News anchor Chris Matthews reportedly decided Monday to stay on television and not run for the U.S. Senate seat in Pennsylvania. He doesn’t have what it takes to win a statewide election. Once you’ve said on national television that Barack Obama makes you feel a thrill up your leg, you can pretty much write off the rural counties.

Argus Hamilton is the host comedian at The Comedy Store in Hollywood. He can be reached for speaking engagements by e-mail at argus@argushamilton.com.